Weta Digital back in the ape business

Wellington's visual effects studio Weta Digital, which won an Oscar for King Kong, is about to go ape again.

Weta Digital will create computer-generated apes for a Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise of the Apes, to be made by Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox.

The film, to be released in June next year, will be set in present-day San Francisco and detail experiments in genetic engineering that lead to intelligent apes and the onset of a war of supremacy with humans, Variety magazine reported.

The studio hopes the prequel, directed by British film-maker Rupert Wyatt, will be the first of a series of new Planet of the Apes films.

Weta Digital will use state-of-the-art visual effects – similar to what it achieved in Avatar – to render photo-realistic apes, rather than the costumed actors used in the original movie series in the late 60s and early 70s, and in the 2001 version.

Sir Peter Jackson is a big fan of the original movies, starting with the 1968 Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall. It inspired him to make ape masks and he paid homage to the movie in his early short film The Valley.

In 1992, Sir Peter heard that 20th Century Fox was hoping to relaunch the series, and wrote an outline for a new Planet of the Apes film with partner Fran Walsh. It followed on from the events in the fifth film and had a part for McDowall, who had first played the ape Cornelius.

McDowall had not wanted to be in any more Planet of the Apes films, but changed his mind when he met Sir Peter and Walsh. However, the Fox studio was lukewarm about McDowall and the project stalled. McDowall died in 1998.

Jackson later met other Fox studio executives. They loved the story, and wanted James Cameron to produce the film and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star, but Sir Peter and Walsh weren't keen. Fox later approached them saying Cameron and Schwarzenegger were no longer involved, but negotiations fell over.